


when I don't have you

by fictorium



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Adultery, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Femslash, Mutual Pining, Pining, Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 20:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13131948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: Cat & Kara have to find their way back to each other after a few years apart and Cat's remarriage. Angst with happy ending!





	when I don't have you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lerougeetlenoir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lerougeetlenoir/gifts).



Cat feels the distance for the first time in the alleyway, sitting around on biohazards just to keep Supergirl appropriately mentored. Ridiculous, then, that Kara should feel further away than she did from Bhutan. Impressing on her that life is about the people you love, Cat is irritated when the message doesn’t land, deflected by impatient concern for some boy, for some friend. A few months before, Kara’s attention would have been entirely focused on Cat.

Just another thing she’s lost.

So when the tearful announcement of the boyfriend departing (no doubt to return, they never stay gone for long) greets Cat in her office, where they talk on the sofas just like old times, she keeps it bright and breezy. Mentions all four marriages, and the thwarted proposals to boot. Why should Kara think any hold she has over Cat--assuming Kara ever notices, that is--is something special? Cat falls fast and hard, pays off the divorce and moves on. 

It’s a slip to say Supergirl as Kara dashes off. Cat knows she’ll hear. It’s why her next act is to call the President on her personal cell and accept the offer that’s slightly beneath her. A life in public service, then. If it’s good enough for a superhero, it’ll be good enough for a billionaire CEO in search of her next challenge.

Cat is permanently out of the office by the time Kara returns.

***

With a groan, Cat scans the list of updated reporter credentials for her first week of briefings. Some people she fired, some people she tried to recruit for the Tribune, the usual great and less than of the Washington press corps. One name from the Daily Planet leaps out, and Cat wonders if it’s not too late to quit.

Instead she does what she always has in these situations: confronts the nuisance head on. An opening statement, a referral to the Pentagon, and finally opening up to the eager room for questions.

“Lane, from the Planet?”

“Hello, Kitty.”

Cat bites her tongue. She won’t give Lois the satisfaction. “Do you have a question for your readers in Metropolis? Or should I move on to a more respectable publication like the National City Tribune?”

“You famously named and mentored Supergirl as she emerged as National City’s hero. Is her loyalty to the place, or to you? Will the Girl of Steel be taking laps around the Washington Monument?”

“I imagine she’ll be covering the same zip codes.” Cat keeps her answer to a drawl, thoroughly uninterested. She could ask Lois if either of her boyfriends will be coming to Washington in her wake, but the victory is just too small for the level of pettiness it would require. 

She gets her chance that evening, much as she expected. Lois lays in wait by Cat’s parking space, much as she did back at the Planet as the intern trying to learn from the only other female reporter on staff; even if Cat did only cover the gossip beat.

“If you want to talk, we do it in the car.” Cat is still getting used to driving herself around, relishing the freedom of it after years of chauffeurs, with a pile of work on her lap. Those days are coming, she knows. There’s already so much to keep up with, long days stretching out in front of her as her empire once did. 

And all she has for company is the woman who makes her want to throw things. _Heavy_ things.

“Where’s Kansas?” Cat asks as Lois fumbles with the hem of her charcoal skirt. The suit is well-tailored, Donna Karan maybe. “I can’t remember, am I still pretending I don’t know that the Wholesome Twins are the caped ones, or did we clear the air about that?”

“Couldn’t convince Kara to come work for you, huh?”

Cat looks out of the window at the city crawling past outside. “I didn’t ask. She has other priorities now.”

“Well. Better than asking and being told the strangers of Metropolis matter more than you do. Where are you staying?”

“The Hay-Adams, until the townhouse is cleaned up.”

“Oh good. I like their bar.”

***

Kara is so proud of Cat every time she pops up on C-SPAN, or leads the evening news with one of her podium briefings. Once again, the world hangs on her every word, and if that’s why she went diving in the first place, Kara knows this is a great result for her former boss.

It just might have been nice to know before everyone else. All those years of intimate access to Cat’s life, and Kara found out on page three of the Trib, just like a regular person on the street. It’s that sting that stops Kara from sending the long emails that accumulate in her drafts, the half-composed texts that descend into meaningless strings of emoji when words get too difficult.

And then he comes back, and she loses even more of herself in trying to keep someone who was never worth having in the first place.

This time when he leaves, wife at his side, it’s little more than a relief. Kara accepts commiserations from Winn and Alex, feeling like a fraud as she does. The one person she wants to rant to about all this is too many miles away, and somehow it’s been nine months since they last spoke. 

She opens a blank email, types in the personal address that only eleven people in the world have, and finally asks the question that’s been nagging at her every day since Cat muttered ‘Supergirl’ at Kara’s retreating back.

 _Hey Cat,_ she types, one painful letter at a time. _Are you okay?_

***

It’s the email, the unsigned, casual, finally got time in her busy life, thoughtless email that sends Cat over the edge. 

The semi-regular drinks with Lois have a standing invitation of sorts, two old friends resolving their enmity through heartbreak and 60-year-old Scotch. It only takes a raise of an eyebrow from the podium to make the plans, and sure enough when Cat rolls in some time after nine, Lois is in their corner booth with a double waiting.

“You ever hear from him?” Cat asks. “In either, you know...version?”

“Twice a week, just like clockwork,” Lois groans. “He seems to think career development is something I’ll grow out of. Every time he suggests we go back to how things were, I ask him why they wouldn’t work in a new setting. Guess we both know the answer to that one.”

“Does he know? About… you know. I always wondered if you told him. All that insistence on honesty. You two were nauseating, did I mention that?”

Lois drains her glass. “Only every chance you got. And no, I never told him. What happened between us was nobody’s business. Why would you bring that up?”

It doesn’t take long for Lois to silently answer her own question, not with Cat’s hand placed over hers, thumb stroking over a slender wrist, just like that first night back in Metropolis. Back then the bar had been shadier, the drinks far cheaper, and instead of a suite upstairs that Cat still hadn’t moved out of, she and Lois had enjoyed their first drunken fumbles in a barely-decorated studio apartment.

“You’re not worried about the conflict of interest?” Lois asks when Cat finally stands, leading the way. 

“When has anything like that ever stopped me before?” 

***

She has to go in search of Kal eventually. The breakup had taken Kara by surprise, but with her own woes she hasn’t exactly been devoting much RAM to the trials and tribulations of Clark Kent. Maybe if he’d raised her those last few years she needed it, they’d be closer. Instead so much of what they are to each other is symbolic, all tied up in having one person to hug without moderating their strength.

The Fortress is the first place she looks, and far too obvious. There he sits in the snow drifts, trying to repair a lifeless Kal-X. 

“What’s wrong?” Kara asks, because it’s bound to be Bruce, or Zod, or something so manageable that she could scream.

“I went to see Lois in Washington.” He says it without looking up from his work. “She’s moved on.”

Kara sighs. “It happens. You said you wouldn’t go with her.”

“Just like you didn’t go with Mon-El,” he says. He pushes the robot skeleton aside and stands. “Our homes are where they are. How many must we be asked to give up? Hmm?”

“It’s just a fling,” Kara assures him. She doesn’t appreciate having her ex thrown in her face. “There’s no way Lois gets over you that quickly.”

“Not even when she’s bedding Cat Grant?”

Kara freezes, just as surely as the walls around them. That can’t… she doesn’t want to believe that’s true. Those two hate each other, there’s just no way.

“Cat would never date a reporter,” Kara scoffs. “Maybe you saw a one-time mistake?”

“Maybe,” Kal replies, but he doesn’t sound convinced at all. 

***

When they’re outed, by an Opal City paper of all the outlets, Cat offers Olivia her resignation. It’s summarily rejected, and she continues on as the face and voice of the administration. Lois’s resignation from the Planet sticks, not least because she knows it’s long overdue. She has a book to write, maybe two, and if not now then when the hell will she?

“Does this mean you’re leaving town?” Cat asks, running silky dark hair through her fingers as they lie in the newly-delivered bed at the finished townhouse in Georgetown. She doesn’t mean to sound insecure, and perhaps it only sounds curious.

“Well, the apartment that the Planet were paying for is gone next week. So, that seems like the universe is telling me to move on. If I’m going to write this damn book.”

“You’re renting out your place in Metropolis?”

Lois nods. Having caught her breath she seems intent on rediscovering the lines of Cat’s collarbones with her mouth.

“Well, this place is far too big for just me. That room upstairs would make for a hell of an office.”

“You do always pick places with a killer view.”

Cat sits up, the sheets falling away. “Is that a yes?”

Lois answers with a kiss, but one that doesn’t linger. It’s not quite the response Cat hoped for, but she’s learning these days to live without the font of all enthusiasm by her side. Lois is saying yes, and that has to be enough.

***

The change of address is just another email, one Kara would usually read and update her contacts without really registering the change. Lois’s note is brief and cheerful, in a way she hasn’t been since Kara first landed on Earth. 

But she’s known that address since the moment Cat received the brochure, never mind when she signed the deeds. The prolonged stay at the Hay-Adams had been Kara’s lifeline, proof that this big change in Cat’s life couldn’t stick, that she couldn’t stay away forever. 

It’s then that Kara reads the headlines in her saved searches, a habit she didn’t get out of when leaving her assistant role. The Opal City Post has an exclusive on Cat dating Lois Lane. _From Superman to Super Woman?_ The headline blares, and Kara wants to laugh at how that name should have been hers. 

It explains the change of address. It explains that it must be serious, even given Cat’s propensity to overcommit too quickly. It explains, maybe, why Cat never did reply to that email.

When Alex comes over later, she doesn’t ask about the holes punched in the apartment wall. She must have seen the papers too.

***

A year is good going for any new couple in DC, though Cat likes to think it’s easier now Lois can bend around her hours. They’re having dinner at the White House--Olivia’s insistence once she learned of the milestone--and Cat is two martinis deeper than she should be for something that’s technically work.

She watches Olivia’s husband flirt with Lois over some elaborate take on crème brulée, and the pang hits Cat right in the gut. When Olivia sidles up to make some well-intended crack about being worried, Cat’s resolve is set.

No more losing, no more letting a good woman slip through her fingers. Lois looks up in that moment and smiles, and even though no one is asking the question, Cat finds herself mouthing _yes._

***

Being a junior reporter means spending a lot of time around the courthouse. Whether it’s criminal or political activity, or the unfortunate combination of both, that suite of buildings is a hub in National City.

Kara is sipping on a hot chocolate when she spots Carter. If she were human, that stunned mouthful might have scalded her tongue. His hair is shorter, but he still looks the same. Taller, too, Kara realizes as she walks toward him. He’s looking very dapper in a navy tailored suit and tan leather shoes that belong on a man ten years his senior. 

The reason why becomes clear a moment later. Some milling people finally clear the hallway and Kara sees that familiar slender frame sitting daintily on a bench. Perfect legs crossed, the cream silk dress looking as though it had been sculpted to every line and slight curve. Next to her, in a gray suit even sharper than Carter’s, sits Lois. Her hair is pulled up in a neat bun that Kara could only dream of replicating. Dark eyes are watching the door opposite intently, and she takes Cat’s hand so casually that Kara can feel something like a scream rising in her throat.

She bolts before they can discover, risking the breeze of her super speed. All the same, Kara could swear she feels Cat’s gaze as she departs. Why the hell did they have to come back here?

***

The month when Supergirl goes missing, presumed dead, is one of the longest of Cat’s life. Six months married, she should be settled and calm. She should be happy. Instead she’s finding any excuse to return to the West Coast, to interfere with the DEO overlords in Washington, to excoriate the villains responsible from her podium. There’s concern she’s making herself the next target, not least of all from Lois.

“We all miss her!” Lois snaps as Cat shreds the nightly news for relegating the chase for Supergirl’s killers to sixth in the lineup. “But Christ, Cat. It’s like they took her from you and no one else. Why are you taking this so damn personally?”

“Because--”

“You named her? She’s linked to CatCo? Not buying it. Not this time.”

Cat tops off her wine glass. “Darling…” And damn if that isn’t a rookie mistake. Lois taught her the ‘darling buys you distance’ trick, and she recognizes it in an instant.

“I’ll leave you to your obsession.” Lois gathers her bag and the first coat she comes across. It’s Cat’s, but that couldn’t matter less. “Maybe when I get back you’ll be back in the real world with the rest of us. God, even Clark isn’t taking it this badly.”

“Isn’t he?” Cat’s voice is acid, dripping corrosion into the air between them. “Running off to comfort him now?”

“No, I’m going to stay with my sister.” Well it must be bad if Lois is leaning on the little sister who can barely stand her. “But feel free to keep accusing me of betrayal when you’re the one who seems to be in love with a woman you never so much as dated.”

“Lois, no. Wait--”

But the door is slamming and the house echoes in all its emptiness. Cat turns back to the news, flips over to another CatCo channel to watch the same news show on delay. 

***

It takes a long time after the DEO find her for Kara to be fully revived. In those weeks on the special sunbeds, there’s little she remembers from her drifts into consciousness. Alex and Eliza, sure, or at least the comfort of their presence. Kara feels safer for knowing they’re there. Sometimes it’s J’onn, praying for her in a tongue that must be Martian. 

Other times she’s kept company by her dreams. Imagines Cat pacing the laboratory that’s become Kara’s home. Conjures up rants and threats that Cat would make, ordering them to make Kara whole again. One time Kara could swear she wakes up for just a moment to the feel of Cat squeezing her hand. 

Kara doesn’t mention the dreams when the cure finally works and she’s back on her shaky legs once more. It isn’t until Alex keeps frowning at her phone during the adapted physiotherapy sessions that Kara mentions Cat at all. 

“You look like I did when Cat would text me at 3am asking for hangover cures.”

Alex hesitates. “Funny you should mention her. J’onn’s ready to take out a restraining order.”

“She was here?” 

“Much to her new wife’s annoyance, yes.”

That’s more than Kara cares to hear at this point, so she returns to her strength exercises, feeling the ripple of her usual strength starting to return to exhausted muscle. 

“Did she leave a message?” Kara asks when the silence stretches on. “Or, I don’t know… a card?”

“She said you should call, yeah. Something about ‘only if it’s better than your emails’?” 

“Right.” Kara picks up a towel and wipes her face, grateful that Alex doesn’t press for details. “Guess I’d better get a new phone then, huh?”

***

Of course Kara calls when Cat is trying to cook an apology dinner. Of course Lois is the one to see the message when Cat doesn’t hear the damn thing ring. It might be an unfamiliar number, but Kara so helpfully signs it.

None of which is damning, Lois is neither that petty nor needlessly jealous. No, it’s Cat’s reaction to the news, the shattered dish of vegetable lasagna that splatters tomato and eggplant across the kitchen floor.

Lois nods at whatever confirmation that is for her. 

“No, wait…” But Lois has never waited for anything in her life. Cat knows the offers to make at this stage, for counseling or extended vacations filled with quality time, but she made this commitment with one foot out the door. What’s worse is that they both know it.

It would be something if a year was at least a record for Cat, but husband number one still holds the 10-month record. 

***

Cat returns the call at what has to be almost 2am her time. At full strength, Kara’s feverish grip of the handset would crush it, but this time the screen barely cracks. 

“Hello?”

“I missed your call.”

“I missed most of the fall, so I guess we’re about even?” It feels better than waking up to joke with her. “Did you really come to the DEO?”

“It’s what anyone would have done. In my position.”

“You know, a lot has changed in the past couple of years, Cat.” Kara waits out the pointed silence, lets Cat adjust to their new reality. 

“Not least of all you calling me by my first name. Just like Supergirl.”

Before her nerve can falter, Kara rushes in. “Yes. One of the many ways in which I’m _just like her_. As you, um, know.”

“Yes.” There’s a rustling of fabric as Cat makes herself comfortable. “I suppose I do.”

“Cat?”

“Kara?”

“Why did you do it? And… and why come back to National City?”

The phone is muffled for a second--Cat turning over in bed? Is Lois there, listening in?--before Cat hums in consideration. She always does that when she’s debating how much to say, rather than plunging right into an infamous Cat Grant dressing down.

“Honestly?”

“Yes. Let’s be honest from now on.”

Cat snorts, with just a little derision. “I think I was hoping you’d find out and stop me.”

“Oh,” Kara says on the exhale. “Oh. I wanted to?”

“And yet here we are. It’s getting late, we can talk another time--”

“Wait!” Kara has to ask while the boldness remains. “Do you think we could… it’s silly, but what if we kept the line open? Even if you’re just sleeping I’d feel like…”

“We’re making up for lost time?”

Kara smiles. There’s that superpower again, divining what she needs. “Something like that.”

***

Cat sleeps well for the first time in months. Admittedly she only manages five hours, but that’s fairly spectacular by her standards. She wakes to the sound of barely perceptible snoring over the phone, letting it play out on speaker as she goes about her morning routine. 

Only when she’s leaving for the White House does Kara stumble into wakefulness. 

“I have a packed day,” Cat apologizes in advance. “But we do need to talk.”

“I’ll be around tonight,” Kara says. “Or tomorrow. No rush, right?”

For someone who’s spent her life rushing--to the next story, to the next acquisition, to the next broadcast record--it’s just short of a miracle that Cat agrees. 

“Just one thing, Kara.”

“Hmm?”

“I wish we’d done this sooner. I came back from Bhutan, ready to tell you that I… well, ready to explore something better. Despite my usual flair for getting what I want, I gave up too easily and now…”

“You’re married. To someone else.” Kara sighs.

“Something that will take time to resolve. But I don’t mind taking that time if you’re…”

“Waiting?”

“Yes. I won’t hurt Lois, not more than I already have.” Cat is resolved on that much at least. Never mind that she doesn’t need the scandal. Although something about Washington feels less welcoming today. Perhaps it’s time to talk to Lena about the conditions of buying that majority share. “Is that…”

“Yeah,” Kara says. “I know you don’t always believe it, but you’re too good a person to do otherwise.”

“That said…” Cat can’t help it. She’s tired of wanting. “I will be in San Diego next weekend. Since that isn’t far…?”

***

The hotel bed is huge, luxurious in all the ways Cat demands. The rest of the staffers have returned to DC, but she’s using some rare vacation days to make it a long weekend.

How could she not, with Kara naked beside her? All those Greek sculpture curves that the Supergirl costume hints at are only more breathtaking up close. Cat lays on her back, basking in the afterglow against a mountain of pillows. Before long, Kara’s on the move. Instead of simply turning, she floats until she’s in position over Cat, her smile every bit as giddy as Cat feels. 

“You’re insatiable,” she complains, and Kara only smiles wider, dragging a fingertip along Cat’s jawline before kissing where it comes to a stop. “Though I suppose we have some catching up to do.”

“We could have been here two years ago.” Kara’s next kiss is a little more forceful. “But my whole life has been messed up timing. As long as I end up with you, I guess I don’t mind.”

“End up with?”

“You think after all this I’m just in it for the weekend? I know, I know. Divorce, geography. We’ll _fix_ all that.”

“How are you still such an optimist?” Cat wriggles out from under Kara. She just has to quickly check her email and then--

Kara is guiding her back to bed, so gently they might barely be touching at all. “That doesn’t mean I want anything less than every minute of your attention this weekend.”

“So you’re saying I was worth the wait?” A salve for the ego, it isn’t a lot to ask. Kara’s response is kissing her way down Cat’s body, settling between her legs. 

“Let’s see how good you are at waiting, hmm?” 

***

The storm is easily weathered in the end, the divorce laws more favorable than Cat has previously been used to. She waits for the reelection campaign to begin in earnest, before quietly handing in her resignation.

“I wish you’d stay,” Olivia sighs. 

“I steadied the ship. I got everyone back in line. I’m leaving you with a team you can be proud of.” Cat takes one more look around the Oval. The effect hasn’t dwindled with time. 

“So… what’s next?”

“Happiness.” It’s a sentiment for the confessional, not an exit interview, but Cat can’t help herself. “Maybe something like peace.”

“Then tell Kara I send my best,” Olivia commands. “Oh, did you really think you could get anything past me, Kitty?”

Cat holds her hands up in defeat. She really should have known better.

***

Kara hears the door open and zips across the living room to what she hopes looks like a casual reading nook. She has the book open by the time Cat enters, but the characters are swimming in front of her eyes. 

“There you are,” she says, smiling broadly. She can’t hear a hint of the nerves that have plagued her all day.

“You know, on Earth we read our books the right way up,” Cat points out, ruining the ruse of cool, calm, and collected. “It’s sweet that you’re nervous, though.”

“I--” Cat kisses her, and Kara isn’t nervous anymore. In Cat’s penthouse they’re both home, and both exactly where they should be. 


End file.
